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Looking to Buy Computer For 10 year Old

Help we are confused! We want to buy a computer for our 10 year old. The main purpose is to play games - Harry Potter variety / Sims 2 variety--and whatever comes next for pre-teens. Her current XP box doesn't run them anymore--even with memory upgrades, they won't load.

We want to make sure the new box will run Vista next year. Gaming PCs seem awfully expensive, but $500-$700 varieties don't always seem to have slot for video cards and j-sticks and the like.

We want to make sure whatever we buy will run Vista next year. We don't need any peripherals.

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...I have a similar PC, and I get 20FPS playing at 1280x1024 max detail. Don't pay extra for the X600 and monitor; just buy a 7600GT. And make sure to order it with a Windows XP CD so that you can reinstall Windoze without all the crapware.

I don't know if the other people work for a computer place, but I just bought a brand new Dell E510 from Ebay and I paid a total of $600. I know that was an incredible deal for what I got, but it is an auction and I am great at winning them. Plus, if you was to need a graphic card on top of that, it would be less than 100 on Ebay. Either way, you will save at least 300-400 buying one on Ebay and I guarantee at least 200. Here is what I got...

I've been through this with two neighbors, which is why I didn't invest in an E 510............. You are going to need a graphix card, and soon. The graphix cards that come standard with those systems are crap. You need to ahead and upgrade to at least a Gig of RAM. Two is better. Be sure to my a matched set of modules. That's going to run about $280.00. Straighten out those two issues, and you will probably have a lot of fun. Hang in there.

Does Dell have a store on Ebay? If they do did you buy it from them through an auction or did you buy the computer from another seller? I too have purchased from Ebay in the past but I've never considered buying a new computer off of Ebay.

I didn't notice any warranty information in your configuration description. What kind of warranty did you receive with your new Dell computer purchase and if you didn't buy it from Dell on Ebay but from someone else will the other seller agree to warranty your new Dell computer?

just get it with the X600 video card and it will run anything up to Battlefield 2 on farly high settings. It should play Sims 2 fine. and yes it does come with a "windows vista cabable" sticker. also if you realy want to upgrade the video card get a 7600GS or 7600GT, GT is better but GS should handel whatever fine.

The Dell E510 is the "Home and Home Office" version of the Dell 51xx sold under the Business and the Educational sales divisions. Even Dell sales reps will tell you so.

The E510 has been available with 30-40% discount "firesales" 3 or 4 time within the last 3 months. Thats why I suggested you watch for another firesale (Slick Deals is one place to watch).

I purchased one for a charity I support. For office use, it had some options a Home/Game PC would not need. I wound up getting a $1978 ($2355 if priced as a Dell 5150 system thru educational sales) system for about $1200 and change.

However, many people were buying the base E510 (Intel 2.8Ghz 820 dual core) with a 20" widescreen (Dell 2007FPW) for $600. For a gaming platform I would add memory (1 GB or more) and the optional X600 graphics card upgrade unless you want an even higher end graphics card (BIG factor in gaming performance).

In short, catch it on a Dell firesale and you can have a NICE system for $650-850.

Read what CNET and some of the other PC experts are saying about Vista. It's going to be a long time before Vista is completely consumer ready; it's also going to take extremely high-end setups to adequately run the complete program. Vista capable and Vista ready are two completely different agendas. Everyone needs to do some serious research on the Vista thing. If you are not an expert, stick with these guys at CNet and consult your neighborhood PC guru. XP Professional is going to rule for quite some time. XP Home Edition is all a youngster needs. There are a couple of systems out there appropriate for a 10-year old and they are simple enough that you can go in behind them, after bed time, and clean everything up.Acer Aspire is a good one - my nephew has been trying to kill one for a couple of years. Dell's B110 can handle more than it gets credit for - even though it (basically) has the same motherboard as my old L600r.Get a 17" flat panel. The one modification you will need to do is install a Crucial Ballistix 1-Gig kit. That's about $160.00. Buy the systems with the base RAM because you are going to swith it out anyway. A simple system like these will keep a kid busy until he's preteen and ready for upgrades. Forget about having one that is Vista ready. I don't care what anybody says: They aren't making those yet.

I am not a real expert, but I also have a 10 year old boy. I bought him a relatively basic Dell last year with a good graphics card and 1GB of memory and it he has been quite happy with it.

The games you mentioned are older and don't require massive processing power. So for that you should not need a top-end computer.

However for a computer to comfortably run Vista you will really have to spend quite a lot of Money. Best is a Dual core processor, 2GB of memory etc. You will pay a lot of Money for that (definitely well over $1500)

Personally I would go with a reasonably specced unit in the $500 to $700 range with a good videocard. let the bgs come out of Vista first and then in 12 to 18 Months buy him a computer with Vista pre-installed.

I am pretty sure that the combined cost of the two computers will be not much more (maybe even less) than buying that high spec computer now and a Vista upgrade next year.

Also you get the joy of getting you boy a computer twice. Use the old one as a backup station or a unit for yourself afterwards on a little network